Guest Post: Renee Scattergood

Here’s a guest post from Renee Scattergood, author of Demon Hunt. it covers her story creation process. Check it out.

My Story Creation Process

By Renee Scattergood

When I come up with an idea for a story, it almost always starts with a character. Sometimes I’ll have a dream that really sticks with me and the character will come from that. Other times I have had a character pop into my head when reading other stories or just daydreaming. For instance, the character, Kado, in my Shadow Stalker series came to mind when I read The Celestine Prophecy.

Once I have an idea for a character, I give them a name and start working on their personal story. This person doesn’t necessarily become the main character, though, like with Kado. While I was developing Kado’s personality, I decided that he would be better in the “teacher/guide” role for the main character. So I then had to decide who would be my main character.

As with Shadow Stalker, this process of developing a main character went through a lot of changes. At first, the main character was a man in his mid-twenties with a family of his own. He wasn’t even a full shadow stalker. His mother was normal human and rather than being raised by Kado, he was raised by his grandparents. Then it changed to a female in her mid-twenties, but then I decided I wanted Kado to be the one to raise her, and to have it make sense that she’d still be living with him, she had to be younger. So I decided to have her just finishing secondary school.

While I’m developing the main character’s story, other characters usually start making an appearance. Originally Auren had four other friends who were going to go on the camping trip with her, but since only two of them were going to make appearances later in the story, I decided to cut the other two out. Other characters will come into the story as I start writing as well.

By the time the main character starts feeling like a real person, a story starts coming together in my mind. The main plot of the story almost always writes itself. That’s about the time that I really start planning out the story. As a first with Shadow Stalker, to prevent myself from straying from the main plot, I have written a paragraph summary of the first 12 episodes. Then I have been going through and writing a paragraph summary for each chapter in the individual episodes.

I have found that planning the stories out this way makes writing the first draft so much easier. Sometimes things will happen naturally in the story that make me change what I’m writing, but it’s easy to rewrite the outline so that I can stay on track. After the first draft is done, the editing starts. Of course, the final draft often looks nothing like the first, but following this process has always made it a lot simpler to get to that point.

Oh, and often while I’m writing I will come up with ideas for other stories. So this process could be going on simultaneously and at different stages with other stories. At the moment I’m developing three other stories while I’m busy writing Shadow Stalker. So it’s a never ending process. Not that I ever want it to end!

About the Shadow Stalker Series:

Shadow Stalker is a series of short novellas (episodes) that tell the story of Auren, a young shadow stalker who is being hunted by the Galvadi Empire because of their belief that she will enslave the people of the Serpent Isles.

Episode 1: The Hidden Truth

Auren Trask’s perfectly normal life is disrupted when the Galvadi invade, and she learns a startling secret about her past. A secret that will change her life forever.

Episode 2: The Delohi-Saqu’s Fate

Auren is being targeted by the Council of Elders, and the only one who could put an end to their corruption is her father. But leaving the Dark Isle would turn Kado against her.

Episode 3: Shadows’ Betrayal

After seeing the monster she will become, Auren swears not to leave the Dark Isle. Despite that, the elders are conspiring against her. To escape their scheming, she and Kado decide to explore the Dark Isle. But worse things await them in the forests.

Episode 4: Forbidden Love

Kado and Auren survive a deadly storm, but when Auren is forbidden from pursuing love with another young shadow stalker, will it be enough to drive a wedge between her and her foster father?

Episode 5: Destiny Reconciled Part 1

Auren and Kado accept that they may not be able to avoid her leaving the Dark Isle. Now they have to prepare for that eventuality. Will the training be more than Auren can handle?

About Demon Hunt:

Auren longs for adventure and a break from her tedious life on Appolia. It’s the start of summer, and she is looking forward to her yearly camping trip with her foster father, Kado. She believes these trips are for fun, but when they arrive on Luten Isle, Kado informs her that she is a shadow stalker, and she is in training.

One morning, Auren decides to take her training into her own hands. She only means to practice seeing the veil to the shadow world, the world of the shadow people and the source of their power. Instead, she opens the veil releasing a demon, a guardian of the shadow world, into the physical world.

With the deadly beast loose, she and Kado don’t have long to hunt it down and return it to where it belongs, or many innocent people could die.